Health advocates begin their new push for a tobacco tax by releasing a poll Wednesday that appears to show strong support for a $1-a-pack tax.
The poll of 500 Oregon voters taken for the Tobacco-Free Coalition of Oregon showed that 47 percent strongly support the dollar increase while another 24 percent "somewhat favor" such a tax hike.
The coalition pitches that as 71 percent support for a tobacco tax hike. That could be - although it might depend on how you view those in the "somewhat support" category, particularly since the question was asked in the context of "decreasing the state budget deficit."
Of course, the Legislature learned about the difficulties of seeking a dramatic increase in cigarette taxes in 2007 when the tobacco industry spent nearly $12 million getting Oregon voters to soundly reject a proposed 84.5-cent-a-pack hike.
We'll see if the Legislature remains scarred enough by that experience to avoid taking on the tobacco tax fight once again. (Oregon's current cigarette tax, by the way, is $1.18 a pack; 28th highest among the states.)
The politics of taking this issue on certainly remain daunting. It would be tough given the close partisan divide in the Legislature to get the three-fifths vote to raise taxes. And it's doubtful the Legislature would want to take the same route it tried in 2007: referring voters a proposed constitutional amendment to raise tobacco taxes after legislative leaders couldn't get the three-fifths needed to just raise the tax statutorily.
The tobacco industry, which set a record on ballot measure spending in Oregon, focused on the idea that such a tax had no place in the state Constitution.